Bucs’ win doesn’t mean the 49ers were wrong to pass on Tom Brady

Once the Super Bowl got out of hand, much of Sunday was a coronation of Tom Brady as the king of kings, the goat of goats, and the master of his domain. As sometimes happens in those situations, people started to look back on past events without separating themselves from the knowledge of the present. Case in point, the tweet below from Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk. He was certainly not alone in this thinking by far, but his was the most prominent voice that I saw express this opinion, so he gets the embed.

The tweet implies the 49ers were wrong for having chosen a then-28-year-old quarterback coming off a Super Bowl season over a then-42-year-old quarterback coming off one of his least impressive seasons.

As I said on today’s Niners Nation podcast, I do believe Brady would have made the 49ers better this year than they were with Jimmy Garoppolo- even with all the injuries. But I couldn’t have said that in March of 2019 - and neither could anyone else.

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It’s one thing for a 7-9 Buccaneers team that saw its quarterback throw 30 interceptions to roll the dice on a decorated quadragenarian chasing a ring. It’s quite another for the defending NFC champions to dump their starting quarterback on the hope that Brady would be able to make an historic run at age 43 to an unprecedented seventh Super Bowl title.

Now, had the 49ers known that Brady was going to throw 40 touchdown passes for the first time since 2007, I’m sure they would have gladly made the move. But nobody knew that - not even Vegas. Brady’s over/under for touchdown passes in 2020 was 32.5.

There a lot of things to criticize the 49ers for in 2020, but passing on Tom Brady isn’t one of them.

Other things in today’s episode

-Why 49ers fans are taking too much glee in the Chiefs’ loss

-How does a healthy 49ers team match up against these Bucs?

-How John Lynch thew shade at Kyle Shanahan without meaning to